TAMPA, July 5 2012 – Thank heaven for the great Steve Zahn, who in his hilarious turn as Lenny in the Beatlesque That Thing You Do, coined a phrase that applies to nearly every political sentiment expressed here in the land of the free.
“You’re talking gibberish.”
Lenny’s prescient warning against calling the band “The One-ders” was ignored, resulting in the band’s name being universally mispronounced, until it was changed to “The Wonders” by the band’s eventual manager.
The lesson? When gibberish is accepted as reason, bad things happen. The stakes are much higher for healthcare.
There are limitless reactions to the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Obamacare. Unfortunately, those opposed are also talking gibberish. Conservatives are trying to spin the decision as a blow for limited government because it was rendered by a conservative judge. That’s bad enough. Occupy Wall Street’s argument against the decision is even worse.
At least the left’s opposition to the law, where it exists, has remained consistent. True believers in government-provided healthcare object to the Affordable Care Act because it makes use of private insurers. Occupy Wall Street is 100% correct on one thing. “The law will deliver 20+ million new customers and $447 billion in taxpayer subsidies directly to the private health insurance companies.”
Libertarians couldn’t agree more. The Act is nothing more than a half trillion dollar theft for the health insurance industry. That it benefits big business does not make it a “free market” solution. It’s just more welfare, of the corporate variety, that libertarians oppose like any other forcible redistribution of wealth.
The gibberish comes in when Occupy argues for its solution. Proposing “Medicare for All,” a single-payer healthcare system 100% operated by the government, Occupy makes this statement.
“We believe that healthcare is a human right, not a commodity or a luxury for those who can afford it.”
Gibberish. Why? Let’s think for a moment about what this statement really means. To do that, we’re going to have to define the words used in the statement. The first one is “healthcare.”
Continue at Washington Times Communities…
